About Me

Monday, February 27, 2017

Lazy Days and Fazerdaze

So the blog has
been in hiatus for the past couple of months. Which is not as painful as it
sounds. You may not have noticed. There’s been a couple of posts, album reviews
written specifically for NZ Musician which I‘ve reposted here simply because I
use the blog as a receptacle for all manner of bits and bobs I’ve been writing.
Which clearly hasn’t amounted to much over the summer period. I imagine that
will change as the days get shorter, the nights get colder, and I’m more
inclined to spend time inside. And more likely to be left to my own devices, literally
and figuratively. But it’s not just
a summer thing or pure laziness; there’s been a fair amount of upheaval in my
world of late, and I’ve genuinely struggled to form coherent and legible
sentences for much of 2017. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to tidy up or add
a few edits to a time sensitive piece someone had submitted for a guest post.
And while I’ve managed to keep the blog’s Facebook page ticking over with
relatively fresh content most days, it’s fair to say I’ve lacked the requisite
inspiration to come up with anything remotely substantial in terms of an actual
500-word-plus music-related blogpost. Well, there’s that (the inspiration
factor), and perhaps just a smidgen of pure laziness.

I’ve been getting
out quite a bit – I’ve been relishing the cinema experience and since the turn
of the year I’ve seen a run of pretty decent movies which include ‘A United
Kingdom’, ‘Lion’, ‘Hidden Figures’, and ‘Pork Pie’. The first film on that list
– a story about sovereignty, bigotry, and interracial love in Botswana – was
especially poignant as I watched it a few days after my own daughter had
returned from a five-week humanitarian trip to Botswana and Zambia. The release
of ‘Trainspotting 2’ is the most obvious next must-see on the Popcorn (&
Pinot) Bucket List. I’ve missed a few
gigs I wanted to see, however. Gigs by people and bands I’m friendly with. At
venues I wanted to be at. I’ve had people and bands I’m friendly with send me
press releases and new music to sample (and review – which I’ll get to). All of
which have been neglected. Since New Year, it seems I just haven’t been able to
summon the energy (or health) necessary to embrace all things Rock n’ Roll.
Either by attendance or merely writing about it. That said, I made
it out last Saturday night, for what amounted to a triple bill. A triple date
(three couples) seeing three bands none of us were overly familiar with. At a
venue – Caroline (bar) in Wellington – which challenged us all in terms of location,
ambience, and age demographic. The first band of the night was
Girlboss, a young four-piece none of us knew anything about. Two women,
including a none-too-confident lead singer who showed real promise, and two
guys, nervously took us through a half dozen tunes that could best be described
as shoegaze-meets-Flying Nun. If this wasn’t exactly their first live outing (and
it wasn’t), then they will surely only benefit massively from gigs of this type,
because I got the overwhelming sense that, lack of confidence aside, Girlboss will
get much better before too much longer. They probably just need someone to keep
telling them that. Next up was the
band we were all there to see (primarily), the Auckland-based Fazerdaze, who
somehow managed to find themselves conceding the headline spot to Kane Strang
(the third act on the bill), which was a little unexpected. I’ve written a little bit about Fazerdaze here, and the band didn’t disappoint, proving that
even in a live setting they could live up to the considerable hype they’ve been
burdened with across the past year or so.

For lead singer
Amelia Murray, the Caroline set was more or less a homecoming gig, and she was
quick to acknowledge her ex-Onslow College classmates in the audience, which
had hit near capacity by the time Fazerdaze started its set. By the second song
in, the aptly titled new single ‘Lucky Girl’, Murray and the band were in
complete control, with the crowd fully engaged in the band’s enthralling blend
of summery jangle and harder-edged power pop chords. It stayed that way for the
entire set – which lasted around 45 minutes – culminating with a sublime take
on the hugely popular ‘Little Uneasy’, which followed a rather more forgettable
Gwen Stefani cover (the name of which was lost on me). If the Fazerdaze
performance was well worth the price of admission alone (it was), then I found
Kane Strang to be very disappointing. To the extent that I couldn’t actually
stay beyond a handful of tunes (perhaps 20-25 minutes at most). For whatever
reason, I had expected a solo set from Strang, but instead we got the full
four-piece band, and a kind of sludgy overblown far-too-loud fuzzy mess. Sometimes
less is more. I’m not sure whether
or not the low ceiling of the venue was to blame (Fazerdaze managed okay), but
the mix was all wrong, and Strang’s vocals lacked any clarity or real definition.
The Strang tunes I knew best from his studio releases, say ‘Things Are Never
Simple’ (for example), took on an entirely different complexion, with the
difference in production values being too stark to cope with. Perhaps it was me,
a combination of being forced to stay upright for too long and having sore
ears, but I wasn’t the only one heading for the door prematurely, and after the
highs of Fazerdaze, it meant the night ended somewhat earlier than was
initially planned. Yet, with all that
said and done, it was good to get out again, and great to hang out with friends
at a gig for the first time (of any note) in 2017. And of course, it gave me
something solid to blog about, a brief window of inspiration, and a reminder
that for all that I’ve been a little out of the loop over the past few weeks, I
actually love doing this stuff …